Chile Forum

Chile Forum in English for Gringos, Expatriates, and Travelers to Exchange Ideas and Information about Chile, South America. For more than a decade, the Chile Forum has been the center for expats to share their collective knowledge and experience about living in Chile. The Chile Forum is a free community service brought to you by the law office of Spencer Global.

National Crisis, Emergencies, and Natural Disasters in Chile; including the experiences of Chile Forum Members have shared in current and in past crisis, as they have assisted each other and Chile. Things will always go wrong. It is how you deal with it that counts, and that starts with information. When things go wrong, this is the place to come to exchange information about what is going on in Chile.

Forum rules
Moderation of this forum will be very strict compared to other sections of the Chile Forum. “Spamming”, “Trolling”, promotion of “fake news”, “conspiracy theories” or otherwise interfering with the dissemination of accurate information in this dedicated “Crisis Forum” will result in deletion of posts, and repeat offenders will have their accounts banned.

Seen some footage of presumbly a CS grenade, some projectile with white smokey trail, flying about six stories or higher over protestors in to the roof of Cine Arte Alemada which caught on fire the other day. Presumably an accidental round aimed too high as was very long range, could be a coincidence but is liturally on that exact building just before fire starts. And as I stated before but some people decided to disbelieve, there is video footage of the C's grenade launcher rounds catching curtains and a like on fire on people's apartments.

Just seen another video from an apartment looking on to the cinema roof, and yeah it seems like the projectile did cause the fire.

Just thought that was interesting and would share. Not blaming anyone, I think it looks like an accident.

Seen some footage of presumbly a CS grenade, some projectile with white smokey trail, flying about six stories or higher over protestors in to the roof of Cine Arte Alemada which caught on fire the other day. Presumably an accidental round aimed too high as was very long range, could be a coincidence but is liturally on that exact building just before fire starts. And as I stated before but some people decided to disbelieve, there is video footage of the C's grenade launcher rounds catching curtains and a like on fire on people's apartments.

Just seen another video from an apartment looking on to the cinema roof, and yeah it seems like the projectile did cause the fire.

Just thought that was interesting and would share. Not blaming anyone, I think it looks like an accident.

The article goes on to imply, without stating it, that all these deaths are caused by the police or state; echoing some bullshit stats out of the Chilean human rights office, and calling for an investigation in to a death of this protester by electrocution (seems he fell in to water that was eletricified), that as far as I have seen, no one else is even questioning that it was accidental. Not the protesters. not the family. But, hey, let's just assume every death in the country must be caused by some human rights violation and government conspiracy.

They simply do not even attempt to explain that the vast majority of deaths are not even in question, as they involve looters dying in fires. I think we are at 5 deaths that are still under investigation as being possibly the responsibility of the state, among them one or two suicides, while in custody (suicide in custody is presumed by law to be the responsibility of the state, regardless of cause).

In fact, among the rest, a large number are suspected to be foriegners that died in fires in stores that were burning as they were taking part in the looting, as no one has stepped forward to claim the bodies or report them missing. There was a case a couple of weeks ago, that after a fire was put out, the owners of the store were assessing the damage, and discovered two bodies in the reckage days after the fire. no one was missing anyone. no one was looking for anyone.

Here is the thing that pisses me off about this the most. Using the cry of "human rights abuse" as a political weapon, where no substantiated or substantial human rights abuse has occurred.

yes, the government should have foreseen that deploying vast numbers of police, would inevitably lead to some human rights abuse, but, not every rock or molotov throwing protester that gets a boo boo in such situation qualifies as a full throated "human rights abuse".

what it does however, everytime one of these claims turns out to be false and is clearly discredited, it dilutes the protection and credibility of "real" human rights victims. No one that has ever visited a place like Auschwitz or any other site of a real human rights abuse, would in anyway put a few violent protester's boo boos, on the same pedestal; and neither, do my friends in chile that they, their family, their friends in chile really were victims of human rights abuses under the dictatorship, that were torchered, hunted, disappeared, and in some cases murdered.

The irresponsible over use of "human rights abuse" makes the public and world, tune out real cries for help when there are real victims of human rights abuse.

Even when the definition of "human right" is stretched, it is another form of violence against real victims. Ironically, the popular feminist montra seems to capture this above thought too, with the "the rapist in my path", when victims are ignored. It creates a situation of "the little boy that cried wolf"; and the public becomes numb to it, the authorities become numb to it, and finally real cases do not get the proper scrutiny they deserve.

For example, free speech, yes, is a human right; but, when the state interferes with an individuals freedom of speech, should everycase be sent to the Hague?

No.

Which case, against which state mass murderers would you like to put on the back burner for a few years to deal with some little wankers free speech rights?

How about in Chile?

Which cases in the courts of domestic abuse, child abuse, real police brutality, should we boot off the court docket or not investigate, so a protester can have his or her day in court because they got a boo boo?

You know this cuts both ways too. My father, as a prosecutor in the 60's and 70's in the United States, put his foot down on the city police. They were filing his desk and courts with thousands of cases of what my father termed, "hippy, indian, or black in the car made the tail light go out and marijuana appear in the trunk" cases. He dismissed, on mass, hundreds of trumped up cases that the police were bringing against protesters; and bluntly told the police "I got plenty of real crime to prosecute, don't waste my time with this made up bullshit". That one got a big public three cheers from the ACLU.

My point is, there is plenty of real, shocking to the conscious, of anyone that has a conscious, types of human rights abuses in the World, and in Chile. There is no need to invent it. We got plenty, thank you.

How do you fix this?

Simple

Extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence

I'll leave the reader to unpack that above statement however they like.

The silent majority could be out there and come April there is a vote for no change.

This "crisis" shit show has now run through over 250-odd pages of comments in two main topics since it started. Suggest its time to turn the page and start a new topic as a lot is going to happen in the runup to the Plebiscite, I suspect not much of it will be good news.

But hope springs eternal, so sincere New Year's Wishes to all forumites. Hopefully for a better one than this year turned out to be.

According to the latest CADEM poll released a week ago, 86% support a new constitution.

yea, I have my doubts about CADEM's methods and results. they often have very contradictory questions, with completly different results.

for instance there was a poll a few weeks back where stopping drugs was the number one concern of the country. changing the constitution was not even on the radar screen, nor were any of the "social demands". then magically the next week they were all back on top.

my biggest problem is, Congress has NOT EVEN DEFINED WHO OR WHAT WE ARE VOTING FOR YET!!!!!!

no shit

we have a constitutional amendment/ modifications to hold a vote to rewrite the constitution, and THE FUCKERS IN CONGRESS ARE STILL ARGUING OVER WHO IT IS THAT WILL WRITE IT.

DOES THAT MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE AT ALL??

april is not that far away.

It is a classic fucking Chilean culture thing.

like when you go in a store and they hide the products behind the counter, and you have to guess at what they sell.

well, we all get to guess at what the fuck we are voting for, but this time we are all shopping in the "constitution" store.

The silent majority could be out there and come April there is a vote for no change.

This "crisis" shit show has now run through over 250-odd pages of comments in two main topics since it started. Suggest its time to turn the page and start a new topic as a lot is going to happen in the runup to the Plebiscite, I suspect not much of it will be good news.

But hope springs eternal, so sincere New Year's Wishes to all forumites. Hopefully for a better one than this year turned out to be.

yea, I'm going to lock this thread after the new year. we can start a new discussion on the latest developments.